Everything Changes
by Liz M. J
Summary: Everything changes - when everything goes as it has been foreseen. Hypothesis outgrow to consequences, when the coward grows to reaper. The ineluttable vanity of sacrifice can be compensated by the self-pity of the victim? My Liven Emerald.


"I don't give a damn about your survival, sure, but neither do I care for your death".  
What this meant was quite clear; its consequences weren't, though.  
What could you expect from a resurrected badass riding a giant flaming skeleton?  
You could expect the skeleton to be dangerous. In fact, you could expect the skeleton to attack you.  
So - what should a Kage, a governor, a leader do? Defend himself.  
If you saw it from another perspective, the resurrected badass cold even think they were playing; his skeleton and the giant snail, playing with the quite pleasant nuisance coming from the fluttering sand who coveted things and eyes. He, the badass, could easily erase the Snail and the Sand as their owners; the fact was, that for the last some thousands years he was in hell alone with his life memories. So, for once freed, he wanted to get a bit of fun out of this situation.  
The Kages were straightly trying to kill him instead; or at least to "seal" him, in order to prevent him from killing anyone else, in the midst of that war, which had already once destroyed one of their villages - and many men's lives.  
In fact, Madara Uchiha was not a mourned departed, rather a dead killer who no one wanted to see again. And a very strong, mighty and powerful man.  
The guy who tried to command him didn't want to know his opinions; he was thoroughly faithful in his wonderful perfected technique's power. He was so convinced, that he didn't ask him; the result was that Maddy Uchiha got the angrier with and against him.  
The guy tried to make him kill the Kages and go on with the war; in order to counter him, Maddy decided to NOT kill the Kages; instead, to go on playing with the giant snail and the sand.

Himself, the guy who tried to command him was fighting against two brothers, in order to get out alive from a bad situation; however even him was quite amazed from the ongoing battle.  
The two brothers, the elder and the younger, seemed to have a perfect agreement on everything and the exact feeling of this guy was that they were (though it was so difficult) mind-talking meanwhile they fought. In fact, the younger suddenly burst out with an exclamation, "What?"  
This could have been a good chance, since he indeed was distracted - but just a moment before that, he had stroke the bad guy with a flaming glance.  
His eyes both bleeding - instead of facing the danger of the battle, he turned to his big brother and said "I should have burnt him alive". Thinking of course that this statement was referred to him, the bad guy answered "Like me, Orochimaru-sama couldn't be killed in such a miserable way" - "Danzou could."  
Again that freezing stone-like glance.  
The bad guy, hidden somewhere among the rocks above the brothers' head, thought 'And the worst thing about him is that he's completely human. If he got a snake being like us, what the hell could he be able to do...?'  
"So what about Danzou? What so incredible you've known about him? If you only knew what he did..." - the elder brother commented smiling "You too?"  
"What ME too? YOU? I'd never think...of course, of course - and that best friend of yours...oh, oh, so that's why you killed him first..."  
The young boy (the 'pussy') was quite baffled.  
His big brother answered: "I thought it had been Orochimaru himself, to...I knew that we were many under Danzou in the Anbus, but you too..." - "No, no, Danzou did it. When I became a Shinobi...that means he was usual to it! That's why he always lurked around in the orphanage..." - "So, even Orochimaru..."  
The younger brother burst aggressively out again: "What the fuck you're talking of?"  
"Straight to the point..." the bad guy commented.  
The younger, we'll call him Sissy for the moment, went on aggressive again "SO what? He did - YOU? THAT?" (bad guy "Moreover...HIM...").  
Itchy, the elder brother, simply didn't answer.  
Sissy, again "I should have skinned him alive...I'm gonna destroy that fucking village, I swear it...".  
Itchy didn't even comment again and said, instead: "Oh, now I got it...this is the reason, for which Danzou isn't here with us...Oh, sure, HOW I got it..."  
Sissy went on without listening to him, and turned to the bad guy (whom we'll call Cubby, always for the moment) "So, come with me to erase to ground zero that lair of filthy bastards".  
Cubby got back "In fact, you see, this is not the priority. Konoha is just one, and I want everything". 'PussySissy' (as Cubby called him) answered: "But, everything begins with one. Let's start from Konoha..." he looked both in the rocks where the bad guy might be, and at his brother's displeased face (not that he, in the last 15 years, ever had a pleased expression; but from ice to steel, it means you're displeased) who moved to state: "I leave it. I didn't let you survive for this."  
Panic in the younger's eyes: "But have you realized what he did to you!"  
This was quite too cunty, even for his brother, who answered changing voice and face (elder and bigger Male mode: on; Sissy lowered his eyes, still bleeding) "I could go away. I could tell everything. I didn't trust them. I couldn't trust them. I thought they would only shut the thing down and make me shut up".  
The younger..."Fuck it, man, then THAT was MY family?"  
Cubby took advantage of the 'younger male mode: on' of Pussissy and commented: "All clans are like that. They've been made to help people surviving, like villages. That's why you mustn't die for the clan, nor the family. Try to do something in help of your family and they'll damn your memory".  
Itchy followed "Everything changes. We all tried to prevent the future, and all has miserably failed".  
Sissy looked at him again "He - raped - you?"  
Cubby answered for Itchy: "You're sharp...!" (while he thought, 'They're still reading their minds like they were chatting...Must I be afraid in the end, of this two guys? Uchiha, that's a bad blood').  
Itchy, himself, said: "It's gone. I've done everything I could to protect you from him"  
"That's why you never wanted to teach me anything...But, listen" (Cubby 'Let's hear the sharp Hawk...') "You come with us killing that guy with the mask, then we'll see what we'll do. You know, all of us have a reason to kill him now, right?"  
Itchy: "If you only knew how many and how much..." smiling, again.  
His smiles were more than miracles, and that rare.  
Cubby thought aloud: "I believed you wanted him to catch the Kyuubi and kill him afterwards" - "At first I wanted to kill the Kyuubi. Now I decided otherwise. Moreover, I wanted to kill the Jinchuuriki. I don't give a fuck about the demons".  
Cubby thought thoroughly of it. "Okay. So, now I'm letting him play as he likes with them".

The difficult mind-control operation over Maddy's head fell apart. Maddy thought, 'Okay, I quite know where this will end. I'm just playing some other time...It's funny!'  
The Giant Snail, however, didn't totally agree with him. The Sand of course didn't think.

Itchy, Cubby and Sissy left to join the Jinchuuriki/Kyuubi and others, who were already trying to kill the 'False Madara', otherwise called 'Tobi' or 'The masked man'. He said he was Madara Uchiha (whom we saw before in a totally different disguise and situation).  
First they all believed him, but some three people now had clear proofs of the contrary: he wasn't Madara Uchiha. So, who the fuck was him? Sissy didn't give a damn, as usual. The important thing was to kill him. The problem was, that this masked guy was -untouchable- since he could control his material being - or not. He was able to change his state into an incorporeal, unsubstantial one.  
Sissy thought with Itchy 'The only possible way is to attack him when he tries to touch the Kyuubi'; Cubby got it by himself. So they did.  
BUT: Sissy and Itchy stopped the masked guy, a bit too late.  
He was trying to get the Kyuubi and the Jinchuuriki, or only the Jinchuuriki, or whatever; sure it was, that he DID something to the Jinchuuriki.  
He was - sick, prostrated, pale, hardly breathing, holding his stomach; then, he fainted.  
In fact, the Jinchuuriki's stomach was quite - bleeding. This had to be - oh - quite painful.  
There came Sissy. He attacked the Jinchuuriki - but grabbed him, instead of killing him at once.  
Itchy looked surprised. The incredible amount of miracles acting on a dead man's mind…  
There went the worst part: Sissy grabbed the Jinchuuriki's head and made him look into his eyes.  
The mind dialogue that began then, can be summed up in this few words: "Whatever you're gonna do to me, kill him, kill the guy, kill Kabuto first, stop the Edo Tensei" and Sissy agreeing.  
He then left hold of the Jinchuuriki's head, turned to Cubby and stared to him - for few seconds; the strange and bad thing were his eyes.  
You could see Cubby's trials to take and keep control over himself, until he shook like a cobra waking up, and resigned, lowering his head and hands to the ground.  
The not so far from there Maddy Uchiha, the true one, suddenly crumbled in a bit of stone bricks and dust, under the Kages' eyes; so did some other people with spiral eyes around Sissy and the Jinchuuriki; so did Sissy's brother, in the last moment screaming to him "Don't be fool!".  
The other demons, freed at last but reasoning for good, ganged up coalescing and attacked simultaneously, all together, Cubby. They demolecularised him, just to be sure.  
Then, four minutes of pure chaos; since Sissy mugged and grabbed the Jinchuuriki again, doing something surely quite bad again on him; the Jinchuuriki screamed, in full agony, for a whole minute, holding his stomach again, and hiding the head in his own body, crooked like a dead spider.  
When he stopped screaming, he was shivering and groaning, still crying, hardly breathing again.  
What happened?  
Sissy definitively divided the flow of 'chakra' from the Kyuubi to the Jinchuuriki, who was already tired to death; the pain of the sudden weakening was so strong, so deep, so hard, the Jinchuuriki fainted again. Simply not giving a fuck about his 'best friend' 's health, Sissy took him up from the ground, and prepared to face - or to escape - the next coming danger: all the demons, the Kage, and a lot of other people were - running to him. Or well, against him. To strike him.  
They ran, they were so many it was impossible to defend himself; he was still thinking of a way to escape, when he simply - completely - disappeared. With the Jinchuuriki.  
"Reversed Evocation!" shouted someone with a black mask covering half of his face.  
"The Hell, it's all ended, and it's even a bad end!" commented a man with small sunglasses and blond mustaches.  
The masked one still shouted, totally angry "What the hell of a fuck...What does he want from him? What the hellish fuck is he planning? WHERE ARE THEY GONE? What the fuck - fuck it -fuck on it - WE LOST HIM!"  
But not all those people were crying in mourning for their beloved young hero.  
Someone took the masked guy's mask off - and saw - and panted "What - the - possible - fuck?"

Somewhere else, somewhere in another place (of course dark, and all closed, and stone like - somewhere, behind a water fall) Sissy put the Jinchuuriki down on ground, and called to duty all his mind powers to contact a water-made guy - who just saved him from certain death.  
That water-made guy, using a device built from Orochimaru (one Sissy had already killed, and whose cells and powers and devices Cubby used for the Edo Tensei), willingly changed the course of the battle, controlling it. Once or twice he even helped them against Cubby, first, and the false Madara, then. Whoever, whoever he was.  
Sissy simply told the water-made guy to come there with his peer - there should be their hiding for the moment.  
The Jinchuuriki was totally out of sense.  
Sissy thought it was better to cheer him his 'Welcome Home' before the other two would come.  
The cheer was a fist, in the stomach, and a slap, in the right cheek.  
The boy groaned.  
He put hands on his head, he tried to crouch again, but he - couldn't - the pain at the stomach blocked him. So, he eventually opened his eyes. "...ou?"  
Got another slap as answer. On the other cheek, like the saying goes.  
"Welcome home", said Sissy, unsheathing his Katana, which did not need some chakra now, just its own steel blade, to cut off the Jinchuuriki's headband.  
Then he took it up with the blade's point, and "Throw away the rubbish..." he did, in the water poll beside them.  
The Jinchuuriki could only look at him hatefully, and hastily, before his weak, tired eyes closed again.  
Sissy laughed.  
"You should have told me. How could I get it by myself? I'm still that young!"  
"...what?...huh..."  
Sissy stared for some time at the Jinchuuriki's hair, always (nearly evidently) reading his mind.  
"You're right. Red is better"  
So, here goes another strange thing: he put his right hand open on the Jinchuuriki's stomach, the other hand grabbing violently his hair - and a flow - reversed flow - of 'chakra', of energy - sprang up and flooded the Jinchuuriki's head, covering it, flowing on it, flaming on it, and - growing out of it.  
When the red flash disappeared, the Jinchuuriki's hair was: red, and long, almost five feet long.  
Straight, red, long hair.  
Then, using the last two or three drops of 'chakra' still crawling on the Jinchuuriki's face, Sissy erased the strange scars he always had on the cheeks.  
"Right. That's way better now. Now, the last things"  
Again the hand on the stomach. Again the hand on the head.  
The Jinchuuriki shouted a bit, but this shouldn't be as painful as the last two things; though physical pain he felt, since he grinned.  
"What - the - hellish - fuck...?"  
He still wasn't aware of the scars and hair.  
Sissy laughed again. A bit louder.  
"Sa - su - ke"  
This, the third time, he burst out laughing - like a hyena.  
"Yes, tell me. I'm here" still laughing. Laughing.  
The Jinchuuriki thought he was completely out of his head.  
"Are - youu ... gone maad?"  
"Worse, dear best friend. Way worse, for you".  
He stood up, leaving the other boy lying on the ground, the long hair spread behind him, the shirt drenched in blood - the little 16 y o boy with that painful, scared face, laying there alone - without a help - without a hand - without the strength to get up on his feet. Still panting.  
Still bleeding, but now the blood came from his chest, not his lower stomach, where the Kyuubi's seal had always been, and had just been modified - into a black blur still covered with dried blood.  
The Jinchuuriki saw it, as he took off the shirt to look at what his dear best friend did him; and he saw also that, what Sissy did, the dear best friend lost in his pain as a child - the one whom he absolutely wanted to take - back - home.  
"Whyy...? Why? Sa - suke...why? What is this?"  
"My brand. My sign. My seal" and Sissy laughed again. "In order to make it clear, no? That's mine. You are mine. If you ever get the courage to let some of you friends see you again, that will make it clear, to you first. You're mine. Now, could you stay here, still, for some time? I still have to do something...oh, clear, I see, you'd never do it yourself"  
He picked out from somewhere in his clothes some kunais, and threw 'em - simply threw 'em.  
The Jinchuuriki could only scream, a bit, again.  
But "Bastard!" this time, he got it!  
The kunais nailed his hands to the ground.  
It was, surely, painful, but the surprise of seeing his own hair - which clutched his head on the ground, moving under Sissy's will like they were his own hands - took him the voice away. And closed his mouth. The Jinchuuriki didn't groan - he growled.  
There was nothing to do, thought - Sissy laughed again and left him.  
He went to prevent the two peers to see WHAT he had in mind, to get it, anyway; and to find a better place, with at least an isolated room, to hide in.  
The Jinchuuriki was left there, for the moment, trying to look again at the writing carved on his chest - to be sure he saw right –  
'Uchiha Sasuke'?  
And by the way, why didn't it heal immediately, like his body had always done?  
Maybe - the 'chakra', the black blur, the Kyuubi - 'Kurama! Kurama!'  
No answer. No answer...?  
He couldn't feel the Kyuubi anymore? WHAT DID HE...?  
Kurama - did he kill Kurama? No, I'd be dead the same - they divided us? But why?

The new place was easily found; the other two guys never thought for a moment that Sissy didn't want to kill the Jinchuuriki; only that he maybe could get something useful out of him, like Orochimaru did with them.  
Two weeks later, the thing became clearer.  
The water-made guy was strutting around the place, another cave in some mountain, with four or five big rooms, where they could easily hide for the next years; that time, however, the Jinchuuriki was out of 'his' room (where he had always been until then).  
The water-made guy strolled down the passage and suddenly saw before him - a - what?  
The first thing he noticed wasn't strange - to experiment on someone, of course you need him to be naked - but those he saw weren't the signs of whatever kind of experiment.  
He was - simply - covered with wounds.  
All open, fresh wounds.  
He had felt the Kai's healings Sissy made him, in the last days, but - how could he be covered again with wounds?  
These wounds had all been made in the last two days?  
Moreover: most of those wounds, were scratches - human nail scratches - bruises, ok - and bites.  
Human bites that somewhere made wounds half a finger deep.  
Was Sasuke completely gone crazy?  
What the hell?  
Then the Jinchuuriki raised his head - and the first thing the blond water-made guy noticed was the total PANIC in his eyes.  
Afraid? He was - petrified.  
Completely erased.  
Those blind, numb eyes.  
The only thing you could perceive in his mind was FEAR - and then, subsiding, like it was waiting for its moment, the DESPITE, the SICKNESS, the REJECTION - and then, maybe, the PAIN, or the HATE.  
'He will choose between these two' thought the blond one.  
Then, he noticed his mouth. It was a unique stain of blood.  
The wounds were so many, so serious, so concentrated that in fact you couldn't SEE his mouth.  
The blond guy needed few minutes to conceive the fact that Sasuke could be able to do something like this. Like THIS. 'Look at him. He's wasted.  
Those - NUMB - eyes; did he use the Mangenkyou?  
That's why he doesn't see a single fuck these days...so he's gone to find another pair of eyes, or to get cured somehow?  
Oh, I got it, he went to Orochimaru's hall to find something useful...he can't reversely evoke himself. So, it takes four days to come and go.  
He leaved yesterday...moreover, he's so stupid! He didn't even tell me!  
He's half blind - almost completely, these days - and he's gone alone!  
Better off it.  
I'm letting this poor guy escape.  
Then, sure, I should leave the same...not a good idea to stroll around a person - a vicious bastard - like him'.  
He tried to take the Jinchuuriki by the hand - and the Jinchuuriki only STARED at him with those eyes, whitened, and blanked by the fear.  
"Okay, okay..." Retiring his hands, he thought of something way better; he simply changed his appearance in a woman's one.  
That was simple. And right.  
The Jinchuuriki let him grab his hand and drive him out of the cave, to a certain, stated place: Konoha.  
The only way to protect him from the hanging, forthcoming shame was the simplest: cover him.  
Dress him.  
The only thing he could think of, in the hast of fleeing, was the white (clean!) sheet of the only empty room's bed.  
I better span the panic reaction of the Jinchuuriki at that sight.

The same evening, the blond guy left the Jinchuuriki under the beating rain right before Konoha's gates, shouting like a madman until someone noticed the Jinchuuriki - and then transforming himself into water, to hide.  
The Jinchuuriki was taken in, and first the joyful - then terrorized - exclamations - then the cries, the screams, the anger - then, few minutes (luckily) after his entrance, a male, caring, warm voice said "Bring him to the hospital. Call the Hokage"  
The blond guy crawled, in water form, under the gates and took a short look at what was happening; the man who talked had grey upstanding hair, and a black mask covered half of his face.  
The one thing the blond guy noticed with delight, was that no one DID understand WHAT Sasuke did him truly.  
They only saw he was wounded - maybe they even thought of a fight.  
The blond water-made guy left the village with the certainty of the survival chances for the Jinchuuriki.  
'I can't bet on his mental health', thought he though.  
The Hokage, with others, put all her strength in healing the Jinchuuriki's wounds.  
The man with the black mask wore a psychological grudge for weeks - of course blaming himself for having failed in protecting him.  
They healed almost everything - the only scars they couldn't do anything about were those that built the 'Tag', the writing on Jinchuuriki's chest, the signature of his predator.  
AND - the real seals, the ones that even the water-made guy didn't see - and luckily didn't touch.  
They were hidden from his hair - on the neck, right under the jaw bone, near the ears.  
The RECALL seals.  
If anyone touched them, the seals' author would see it like in television - and therefore control who touched HIS thing. His ... doll. To be kind.  
The worst fact was that those seals were a kind of 'magic' not known in Konoha, apart from some wise old Anbus, who anyway wouldn't absolutely help (they were unreachable after Danzou's death); this means, no one knew what those seals were, nor how those seals worked.  
The man with the black mask and grey hair decided to erase those seals; he thought he knew well enough about the case.  
He didn't.  
As soon as he touched the first, the seal 'switched on' (or 'lit up'): the Jinchuuriki wasn't conscious the same, but this is the strange thing; unconsciously, he screamed in agony for the pain.  
This was the only consequence of the seal's switching on, as far as that man knew; so he went on trying to erase it, and it simply wouldn't work.  
"What the fuck has he done here? Should I really think of THAT?  
In the name of God. They're teenagers!  
He's SASUKE!  
This can't - be - possible.  
Christ, that someone did him THAT, that's certain - but SASUKE?  
Ok, right killing! But this!  
If you only had killed him as child, Itachi!  
If only I understood - understood he would became so...so.  
Tsunade... what can you say?"  
The Hokage stopped, thought, and said: "We can recall the seal once again and try to recognize the chakra of the author. Kakashi, there's no other way. This is clear and certain. You can be sure. The man who mugged him is the same man who did those seals. And moreover, the name is quite cle-" –  
"I can't stand it!" roared the other. "It can't be! I should have killed him before. I shouldn't let him go this far. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. When will he wake up?" –  
"He could wake up right now. We're simply keeping him unconscious, unless the - trauma - gets a bit older. Fresh traumas are like fresh wounds. They - hurt - more. I'm sorry...".

Of course, the other, unknown consequence of this healing trial was that Sissy SAW him, surely touching his - thing.  
And, having in fact gone already almost out of his head in that hellish journey, he of course understood - what he wanted to.  
So - he got angry, he got mad, he got pissed off, and decided - that piece of crap ought to be finally erased - immediately erased.  
That piece of - human - crap was, not - to be honest - himself, but the whole Konoha village.  
With a special treatment reserved for Kakashi and the Jinchuuriki.  
'I'd rather get killed in this thing. Moreover, why the hell should I go on?  
I got no strength. I never did.  
I thought power would give me some. It didn't.  
It weakened me. To a coward. To jeopardy.  
I'll desert my own life if this is the case - when I've erased it in Desert'.  
The problems were many, and easily predictable; the Leaf allied with ANYONE because of that war, so ANYONE was protecting the village, thought Sissy himself was still around willing to destroy it; moreover, they were all there to help finding the Jinchuuriki, and now that he came back home, to find Sissy and, of course, kill him in the worst way possible.  
So - what did Sissy think of?  
'Raise up a little army - an agile team-squad - crawl, sneak into Konoha and kill first the Kage, the Jinchuuriki and Kakashi. Then, go on with the others.  
Where do I find ones? First of all let's call the blondie.  
Oh - wait. He doesn't want to answer - traitor?  
Oh, well...ookayy... I'm gonna find him back - should I go on to Orochimaru's hall first - I have to SEE in order to do things.  
Let's go there - there may be something useful again. For the attack.'

The man with grey hair and the black mask - Kakashi - was quite angry himself with half of the village.  
Of course, NO ONE was admitted to visit the Jinchuuriki - of course, when he eventually woke up, after some days (showing indeed a great strength of will in doing this so soon), the Jinchuuriki DIDN'T WANT to see anyone.  
The shame was growing - and took the place of the sickness, in some way curing it a little.  
But Kakashi got angry the same, because of the missing interest in the Jinchuuriki's case.  
No one even asked him - Kakashi - 'how is the boy doing? What happened?'  
Kakashi's fear was that, the war over, or well 'the war won for the moment, everything's ok, the Jinchuuriki's not dead, he's only been - BEATEN - he only did - FIGHT'.  
He knew, naturally, that nothing about the real shit had to be told; but he still couldn't bear that - cold - again - that freeze –  
-'okay, it's a guy of us, but always the Jinchuuriki.  
He is the sacrifice, sacrificed to protect us all - but in case you try to remember me this, I'd just say that no one did ask him, this is not our fault'.  
Kakashi knew it: this was simply their coping with the FAULT, GUILT feeling coveting all their consciences.  
'It HAS been my fault - I DIDN'T protect him - he was helpless - alone - SO YOUNG - so lonely.  
So frail, so defenseless - I LEFT him defenseless - I didn't think of protecting him'  
and so on.  
Whatever, that all was the same: the Jinchuuriki's mind had been definitively BLOWN.  
He hardly recognized him, Kakashi; he hardly recognized anyone.  
The worst thing at all, was that he often sat up in bed, staring straight in the void towards him, and repeating in half voice, WITHOUT intonation, WITHOUT a tone, like a machine: "Sasuke. Sasuke. Sasuke"  
Like he was talking with him, like he really was there before him; and didn't say nothing else, NEITHER had whatever expression –  
- he was like a broken talking doll, always repeating the same word, as he had to call Sasuke –  
- in order to GET HIM back to himself, TO WAKE HIM UP to sanity  
-to REMEMBER him who he was.  
This had all - come - too late.  
This was surely the worst thing at all - because it stated undoubtedly, that the mugger, the reaper - the RAPER, say it, say it loud: you can't be so coward, you must help him now - was, in the end, him.  
The best friend.  
BEST FRIEND.  
Best friend.  
Traitor.  
Deceiver.  
The snake in the womb.  
The reaper, yes - the Hawk.  
Damned be the moment where he became his PREY.

Then, the village had in fact important things to worry about: the Kage, Tsunade, officially abdicated.  
She was tired, old, weakened herself by the worryings - about the Jinchuuriki.  
In the last week, she actually had always been with him. Never leaving his side.  
Firstly, the reason was that some of the doctors and keepers were men; and the Jinchuuriki fell in a panic crisis whenever he was left alone in a room with a male human being.  
Tsunade eventually decided to ERASE most of the memories from his mind; moreover, in erasing them, she could also get a look at them, to know the reaper's face.  
And name. Though she believed she already knew it.  
The only things she would leave in the Jinchuuriki's mind, of all that happened to him after the battle against the masked man, would be - the reaper's face - and Sasuke.  
He had to KNOW that Sasuke wasn't reliable, wasn't TRUSTWORTH.  
And, in her belief, the two things she would leave were - to say it - the SAME.  
But she had to give up the Hokage's duties, luckily, she already knew - like they all did - who would inherit the throne.  
Kakashi.  
He accepted.  
The Jinchuuriki began to regain his mind - and asked - incredibly - to his healers to LEAVE him all the memories - all the memories.  
He knew.  
He wanted to remember.  
They could only accept, this was his will on himself.  
The thing that lasted longer for him to regain, was the ability to speak - often he couldn't get the words, often he simply put in a phrase a "Sasuke" stopping a second staring the void and immediately getting back to reality, trying to go on with what he was saying.  
And he felt this all - he felt it all.  
He knew, he understood - he watched himself slowly and hardly waking up again, stand on his feet again, try to walk again - breathing deeply, calmly, freely, LIVING again. Breathe living.  
The "Sasuke" word was the clearest measuring of the trauma's effects and consequences ongoing in his mind - the more he thought and talked, the more he tried to - the less he said "Sasuke" looking in the void.  
Tsunade suggested that the three of them, she, Kakashi, and the Jinchuuriki, lived together in the Hokage's place. Like the happy family.  
The Jinchuuriki agreed in total - he even LAUGHED.  
Quite like he laughed - before - ONCE.  
Quite like.  
Not at all.  
So far, so different, so pleasing, so gladful was that laugh, it was simply - unconceivable - now.  
NOW.  
Kakashi always felt to be in this looping blur of questions - of incapability of conceiving, unable to comprehend - unable to accept.  
His mind was still screaming 'WHATEVER ELSE BUT NOT THIS! WHATEVER ELSE!' but to whom?  
He couldn't give orders to the world. He simply couldn't.

The problems, as he became Kage, were many.  
And deep. Deeply - ROOTED.  
The man under the mask, the false Madara Uchiha, after the battle, turned out to be simply - the original someone of a Kagebunshin.  
Someone that was involved in an open inquiry, delving in the depths of The Root;  
the secret association held up by the chief of Anbus, the secret police: Danzou.  
Danzou, already, had been killed by Sasuke;  
Danzou, had perverted Orochimaru;  
Danzou, had diverted Kabuto.  
Kakashi, in the blooming of war, already wanted to espy inside Anbu's police;  
to know WHAT did they do with Itachi Uchiha, with the whole Uchiha clan;  
then, that 'seal on the tongue' thing;  
then the young Anbus talking, and talking, and talking, about WHAT Danzou was used to, with them.  
That seal ... and everything;  
and think of those three: Itachi, Orochimaru, Kabuto.  
And ... ongoing. Ongoing.  
So?  
He decided - to evoke Orochimaru's mind.  
'There must be a way', that was absolutely sure.  
As well as another thing: the Anbu had to be totally dismissed.  
But: to dismiss a constabulary meant to rebuild it.  
Find other Anbus ... or well: keep the younger ones.  
They may be victims, not - reapers.  
This word had entered Kakashi's vocabulary.  
They could even evoke Itachi - ok, chose - begin with him.  
The evocation was just the first trial - the beta version.  
Itachi refused to appear. Why, why, why - whatever. No way.  
Evoking Orochimaru - the thing went way better: he WANTED to talk.  
About anything.  
Tsunade cried bitter tears in hearing the tale of Orochimaru's perversion, from a kid (yet a bit mad) to a slaughterer.  
Thanks to Danzuo's vicious vices, his way of handling the kids - a way too physical way. Orochimaru told them also Kabuto's tale; even - way - worse.  
Kakashi asked him, then, if he knew anything about Itachi.  
Orochimaru burst out laughing. "That was precious to him" –  
"I'd never say that" answered seriously Kakashi.  
"Oh, no hard feelings. Itachi didn't enter Anbus because of his skills –  
Danzou taught him HIS skills, because he wanted him in the Anbus.  
As far as I know, he kept his eyes on him since Itachi was five or six.  
Then this went on - then I went away - I don't know when did he begin with - oh, THAT".  
Neither him could call it with its name.  
Then they tried again with Itachi; this time they simply told him, that they already knew quite everything, that as far as they wanted him to be concerned in this interrogation, his brother had been killed with all the others that night.  
"Do you want me to talk about that night?" –  
"No. I want you to talk me of Danzou".  
"OH - YOU KNEW?"-  
"I need your information. I need to get my hands over the other Anbus guilty in this system. I already understood that there must be other ones. The young Anbus who have been harassed in the last years are simply too many for the single Danzou. There must have grown - such of - a - school of thought. I need you to tell me anything you can".  
And so, Itachi talked.  
Free at last, a courageous man spoke of his past, that - as has been often seen here - black blur, in which a 12 y o child had been trapped for years.  
The Hokage, still mumbling on his story, commented to himself  
'If only Sasuke knew ALSO all of this...' –  
WAIT ...  
"DOES YOUR BROTHER KNOW AB- oh, the hell! Excus-" –  
"He knows. I told him before dying. And I shouldn't" he looked in the Kage's eyes "I shouldn't. It's too late".  
The last thing he said before disappearing.  
The Hokage had to accept it, doubts were now indefensible: it was him.

A crucial turnover was given by the Jinchuuriki himself: he simply told the Hokage about WHERE Sasuke's place was.  
The Kage disposed a team squad to catch him - go there and if he isn't therein, look ANYWHERE - but find him.  
"And I want him fucking alive. If I only was such an animal as he is" Tsunade slapped him on the nape. "Ok, ok, just joking..."  
The team squad went to their old place, and, as we already know, didn't find anything strange.  
Apart from the 'damned room'; but they only saw a room covered with blood, and not wrongly thought there had been killed someone.  
Not that their dear Jinchuuriki had been tortured there for weeks, and that ALL this blood was - HIS.  
They simply passed by.  
And began to look anywhere in the forest, to find him, find him, find him, alive.  
Where was he gone?  
He wandered a bit before finding Orochimaru's hall, and regained almost completely his sight; he then tried to take a look around to find something useful, and found there the water-made guy.  
"I thought you deceived me"-  
"I did. But then - I can't' leave YOU going around totally blind. Though I see you see, now"  
"For some time. For the moment. Where's the other one?"  
"Coming. Where are we going?"  
"Konoha. After I gather some people"  
"AGAIN? But with what you d- ... oh, alright ... I think I must come".  
Leaving they didn't even know where to, they took some strange things from some rooms; the blond guy seemed to know what they could be useful to. Of course he was acting.

Going to Konoha, they passed by an already known place; a spot in the forest, where some immortal (or well, never dying) religious fanatic had been buried 'alive' by a Shinobi of Konoha.  
Of course, the immortal man called upon Sissy as he felt them walking right over his head.  
Something told him to ask for help - that this guy up there would help in some way.  
So Sissy did - he took him out of there.  
Then asked him to join the mission; the immortal still thinking, the water-made guy tried to deter Sissy from attacking Konoha again.  
"Think of it, you've done enough, no? Whatever you did to him - Okay, that's it, but you DID - you even destroyed the Akatsuki, okay, you made a great please to Konoha killing Orochimaru and Itachi and Kabuto and that masked man, but however - you also killed Danzou! Ain't you got enough? This will never work...Sasuke, you'll surely get killed...get out of this...get out..."  
The Immortal butt in "What about the Akatsuki? What about Itachi? You did - you little bast-" – "Don't pronounce my family's name with your filthy mouth! I knew perfectly what I was doing".  
'This is the problem...' thought the blondie.  
"God will judge you. You've never been able to do it yourself, you're not God!"  
"Where has your God been all of this time? I did things that would blow up your God's mind like a bunch of shit. That's exactly what I think he is. If you have to worship someone, here - you got me".  
The Immortal's attack was so swift - Sissy didn't even see it - the water-made guy pushed him out of the Immortal's reach and took the blow in his place.  
Of course he changed himself into water and had no injury.  
But, Sissy - the pussy - the lucky/Scheissgluck noob - had always to act badass before elder alpha males;  
so he went right in front of the Immortal and just stared at him - not knowing, in fact - this jokes didn't work on THAT mind.  
Purification? Meditation? Religion? Belief?  
However - he stroke on Sissy and killed him right in the moment, simply grabbing his hair with one hand and - breaking his neck.  
All clean, fast, simple.  
Sasuke died.  
The blondie didn't even think twice, he ran away - his heavy, big peer trying to keep hold on his pace - the Immortal neither looking nor thinking of them.  
He simply stared at Sissy's body - he simply thought:  
'Reward. This guy must have a biiig reward on his head. Let's get back in the picture...of life' and changed his figure into an anonymous, whoever black-haired man.  
He picked up Sissy's body, and walked toward Konoha; to check the reward.  
Walking, as it was predictable, in the same forest in which the team squad was looking under each and every stone to find Sissy himself; then it's quite normal, if we  
think of it, that not even two hours later he - MET - them.  
They were about three, he didn't even look; he was staring at one of them - the guy with the pompon pony-tail.  
-aru, something ending with -aru, went his name.  
The exchange was quick; he only told them that Sissy mugged him, so he hit back and the guy was quite blind at all - and he easily defeated him, then with that  
peasant's technique - breaking his neck - no one thought there was something strange.  
He got his reward, and going away he said  
"I'd smoke a cigarette, hadn't I left my ones under the rain".  
And went away.

Shikamaru, walking back to Konoha, looking at Sasuke's head slightly swinging from side to side, hanging down from Chouji's arms, went on thinking with a looping something in his head - like a buzz.  
'What, what, what, what have I left behind? What? Something I didn't get? What's strange? Hear it. Let me hear it' spoke he to his brain.  
And the brain did.  
'Cigarette' okay, Asuma  
'rain', okay, Asuma - WHOEVER else knew...?  
The. One. Immortal. "VICIOUS BASTARD!" - "ARE YOU COMPLETELY GONE MAD?" –  
"I'll kill him! I'll kill him! I don't give a fuck about Sasuke! I'll kill that vicious bas- ye don't get it yet? HE'S ASUMA'S MURDERER!"  
Chouji looked tired at him and said "If you say it, it must be so...you'll find him. Now, let's just - walk home"  
He paused. "You see? You're coming back home in the end..." and broke out crying.  
"It's like every generation must have a rotten apple" said Shikamaru.  
A girl, weeping, turned to him "What the hell are you talking about?" –  
"Yes, listen...Orochimaru. Then Itachi. Then Sasuke. Every time, everyone's good and only one is the bastard. It's clearly false. It can only be false. Somewhere else there are - someone else too - the other bastards. It's clear from what we know of the Anbu thing..."  
Chouji sighed, cleared his throat and replied  
"I heard that they want to dismiss all the Anbus. So, they'll have to recruit all the new ones. I was thinking...but I'm not good enough at all for it" –  
Shikamaru answered laughing: "Chouji, come in! We'll try together!"  
"But I can't! I'm not..."  
The girl talked again: "Oh, come on, Chouji. You even managed losing all that weight. You're way more beautiful than Sasuke - anyway - now!"  
Chouji stopped and stared at her, completely baffled. "Ino..." –  
"Lets' walk home guys!" Shikamaru interfered.  
Not the right thing, with a dead former schoolmate in your arms, you don't say?  
"Let's go home. And, could we, okay, just be silent for a little. He's dead, in the end".  
And he IS Sasuke, in the end, but this he didn't say.  
He just did what he said - he didn't say a thing.

In Konoha, the situation was hot. Really hot.  
The old Anbus had been not only dismissed, but many also imprisoned;  
the new Anbus, the younger ones, were rookies;  
they strongly, absolutely needed RECRUITS.  
Shikamaru, Neji and Lee easily passed the test, and Neji was put in chief of the information department, while Shikamaru headed the strategy/planning quarter.  
Lee gained the recruits training place.  
As he got his place, Shikamaru tried to concentrate all of the organization's resources in finding the only bad guy that still strolled around: the Immortal.  
Neji instead pointed on the Jinchuuriki's thing, since:  
when Sasuke was brought dead in Konoha, before someone could even think of it, someone said - and started the rumor –  
that this was, just like Danzou's one, only a Kagebunshin.  
So, Sasuke was somewhere out there - alive.  
Kakashi planned the entire thing clearly;  
they naturally thought there was still someone around of his many organizations and accomplices, so the best thing was to shut up his death.  
His body was analyzed, studied, and then burnt in the crematory.  
The only difference from a normal funeral, was that Kakashi wanted his ashes to be flushed down the public toilet.  
To say, the toilet they used was that next the one wherein the Jinchuuriki, years before, suffered from a diarrhea attack while he was pretending to be Sasuke himself.  
To say.  
That Sasuke was really dead, only a handful of people knew: Kakashi, Tsunade, Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru.  
They all agreed in shutting up.

The things Neji noticed at first hand were: the Jinchuuriki had reported serious injuries from the 'fight'.  
He accessed information on it, without asking nor telling the Hokage, nor anyone else.  
Good work, Anbu.  
He knew of the bites, of the 'signature', of the seals. He ... GOT it.  
But he kind of did the wrong thing; he tried to ask Naruto about it.  
No answer.  
No willing answer.  
Think like an Anbu.  
Naruto was still refusing not to see, but to be seen from anyone of them, except Kakashi, Tsunade, Neji (he had to), the doctors and the Kazekage, when he came to  
Konoha only for to visit him.  
The Kazekage, however, was completely informed.  
He complained that Sasuke had already been killed.  
By someone else than him.  
He decided to come back as soon as he could, to stay beside the Jinchuuriki - who slowly regained the complete possession of his mind.  
He stopped at all to call at "Sasuke".  
He would soon stop thinking of him as well –  
just remembering, not only 'He was like that' and 'He became like this';  
the thing that never got out of his mind, then, was  
'I. am. a. doll'.  
Kakashi didn't tell him that Sasuke was dead.  
He didn't want the Jinchuuriki to hear that fucking name - not only once - again.  
Sasuke simply never existed.  
He hoped the Jinchuuriki would reach this state of mind, some when.  
The girl who had always been in love with him, the Jinchuuriki, some months after simply fell in love with the Kazekage - during his second visit. Youth.  
They married, afterwards, and had a lot of children.  
The first would be, of course, called Naruto.

Neji went on gathering information.  
One important: the hair, someone talked of the Jinchuuriki looong - female-like - hair.  
The hair, that there wasn't a way to cut off.  
The Jinchuuriki wear it tied tight, under his new headband - the headband of the ninja countries alliance - spread to cover his whole head.  
However, he simply never put a foot out the Kage's palace; he even seldom walked in the garden.  
He hated it - to be seen.  
He - actually - felt dirty.  
Dirty.  
Like it was his own, his own fault.  
He couldn't do anything about it - just like it was with the FEAR; it never went away.  
Sometimes it was silent for weeks, but was always there, like a buzz.  
He of course dreamed of the 'bad fact', almost every night.  
He stopped waking up screaming, however.  
He managed to stop screaming.  
Neji noticed the absence of the Jinchuuriki's cheek scars; he remembered them well. Besides, Neji noticed also another thing;  
Tsunade could rarely be seen out of her room, it was the Jinchuuriki who went there to see her;  
but Kakashi, he was ALWAYS with the Jinchuuriki.  
When he had an official speech or a meeting, as he was Hokage, the Jinchuuriki was simply standing behind the curtain.  
He always wanted to keep him under watch.  
That was for the same Jinchuuriki's safety, we know; but Neji didn't.  
He thought - okay.

This thought began to carve in Neji's mind –  
'That has always been the thing between those two - until now they were simply too young to get it.  
Now, the thing has been done, but Sasuke must have tried to kill him afterwards - and Naruto escaped.  
Or well - could we really think, that after all of these years of - tacit love? Friendship? - Naruto wouldn't try to COVER him?  
He never wanted Sasuke to be killed.  
Could this be the fact?'  
Neji began moving, after all.  
He took off Sai from Naruto's guard (he was always followed by guards, he had to, if Sasuke for all of them was still around; the last time Sissy didn't give a fuck about Konoha and only tried to take the Jinchuuriki), neither he knew why he did it;  
this was simply a thing-to-do.  
Think like an Anbu.  
'The problem is - I can't just forget FEELINGS yet.  
I hate him, I know, that's because of my cousin.  
She always loved him, we all knew he would marry her –  
and he goes around playing the bitc-'  
okaay, think like an Anbu  
'and with that piece of crap of a Nukenin, by the way.  
Now, it's even worse! Kakashi!  
Like we all didn't know of his long lasting affair with Iruka!  
He became his right arm, from being just a pre-genin teacher;  
and we all know those two...but Naruto!  
He's 17 years old!  
And in all this mess my cousin has been deceived like a'  
Think. Like. An. Anbu.  
Ookaayy.  
'The only thing I must think of is to find Sasuke and kill him.  
Alright, Naruto's choices aren't my business.  
He's free to do what he wants, and I still think he saved all the village, in some way he still sacrificed himself'.  
So, he could only do one thing: go on palling Naruto to get out of him all the truth.  
And he managed to.  
Naruto - told him - everything.  
Neji, after all the tears and oaths and curses, thought only  
'I was getting maniacal about this thing' so he decided to fall apart Naruto's life, even for some time.  
That red hair.  
He was so beautiful.

But the brain goes on working, even if you don't want to;  
and things do the same, as some weeks later the news of Sasuke's death was spread out, officially stated by the Hokage.  
The Jinchuuriki's guard was dismissed.  
Neji was quite happy at it;  
he came back harassing Naruto, this time to convince him to do a journey - a short journey - to visit his cousin and the Kazekage.  
At the simple word Kazekage Naruto accepted.  
Neji covered this all as a 'Shinobi Intelligence Twinning' between the two countries. It was there, during the journey - in the desert sand's stillness - that Neji got it himself: finally he himself had been caught within the Jinchuuriki attractiveness.  
It was not so easy to call it love - but it was - it was.  
'Neither tell him.  
Just keep it to yourself and enjoy it.  
Think like an Anbu'.  
After that short journey, Naruto asked him to 'get a visit' at his Toad friends, and so they did.

This was the exact reason for which, once come back home in Konoha, Naruto steadily fell into a black, black, deep, strong depression.  
His own black blur, nearly become his home now.  
Neji had to talk every day for six weeks with Kakashi to have the permission –  
to take the Jinchuuriki out of his sight for a long period, in the Kazekage's town.  
He won.  
He eventually proposed that the Jinchuuriki definitively moved to the Sand Country, he felt so well there;  
So, without having admitted it even to himself, the lover left the beloved in better hands; Neji decided to save the Jinchuuriki's mind, who already – already – paid too much, way more than - his faults.  
Of course the Kazekage was happy like a child of having the chance to protect his friend (not to say life-savior) and altogether to give HIM the chance of a better living.  
The Kazekage, as we said before, was already married; the first son was still to come.  
The best thing was that his sister got married too: to Shikamaru –  
-'told and unfold, I suppose it's old partner'-  
– Shikamaru had already decided the first male's name, of course Asuma; the second male, Naruto.  
To list all the weddings, we miss Neji and Ino (sons Asuma, Itachi and Naruto), Chouji and Tenten (sons Asuma and Naruto), and, total looser win, Lee and Sakura (sons Naruto and – Gai).  
A profusion of Naruto.  
The real one, left by Neji in the desert land, eventually WOKE UP.  
Thoroughly woke up.

He and the Kazekage totally agreed in his recruiting in the Desert Patrol Constabulary. First of all, nothing happened in the desert. It was desert.  
Secondly, the desert itself had a soothing effect on the Jinchuuriki's mind.  
Thirdly, the Kazekage's brother had already been appointed as Chief of this constabulary; the Kazekage really cared of the hands in which he put the Jinchuuriki.  
And, more important, the Jinchuuriki needed to train, to fight, to get a move on, to regain the esteem of his body (as of his self-esteem) through testing and showing to himself that he was strong, able, trustable, and – first of all – able to defend himself.  
The Jinchuuriki served in the Desert Patrol Constabulary until he was 50;  
many things happened,  
many others were expected,  
many others failed to be,  
many others failed to be foreseen.  
The Kazekage's brother never married. The Jinchuuriki neither.  
In few years from his recruiting he managed to be appointed Lieutenant, under the rule of the Kazekage's brother, at that time Chief Lieutenant.  
The dreams wasted his psychological resistance for some other years after this upgrade.  
They didn't fade away, slow or calm down; it was his psychological resistance that constantly grew stronger, deeper, deeper rooted on the ground of truth.  
The first thing he left behind was the fear.  
He simply thought, a summer's morning: 'Oh, hey, man, it's all ended up. It's not happening NOW. Now, here, I know anything is going on, I foresee it, I'm prepared to it; now I'm able to manage it. Why should I be afraid now? There's no logical ground for keeping a place for fear, in THIS – HERE and NOW'.  
The dreams were quite a more difficult thing to handle; he couldn't decide what he dreamed – and dream he did.  
He only could try to shut it up – don't listen to the dream – don't pay attention to it – look away from it. And eventually this worked; he stopped to daily remembering the trauma, so he in fact stopped REMEMBERING the trauma's fear, pain, sickness, despite, shame...  
He eventually not only accepted the hair, but – when the wind was still and the sand didn't whirl around in the air among the patrols, shining as golden snow in the sunbeams – he got used to wear it loosed, hanging and moving like a water fall from his sun-burnt face.  
The effect was quite strange, in fact: his skin got darker, almost reddish from the sunbeams, he received the miracle of freckles, and the hair itself shifted again to blond.  
His light blue eyes glowed in the clay hue of his face.  
He never forgot.  
Years and years later, the Kazekage's brother convinced him to get a tattoo over 'that man' 's 'signature': and the Jinchuuriki chose the names Kurama, Minato & Kushina, embedded by the Desert Patrol Constabulary emblem.  
He never forgave him.  
This – the merciless being – the price of his surviving the trauma – was the black sting in his lungs, the only one left of the whole black blur – blown away, blown away from the soothing , healing, lullabying, cradling sand.


End file.
